Spice Low Power

[albertofenini]

Hi Bernard,
it's a very good idea !
If these will not be too expensive I may be in for a let's say ten pieces,we have
repaired all of our Spices with cables and although they work well this is for
sure a better restoration idea
take care and thanks for this effort !

[Massimo Gnerucci]

Depending on price tag I may need 5/6 of them.

[mfleming]

Count me in for one, and perhaps a spare for that lucky future find on TAS.

[rprosperi]

Bernhard - This is great news, and will save the life of many Spice calculators. However, may I make a suggestion?

Create a new thread in the General Forum, repeating this new post about the Spice power connector board, and I think you will get much wider (and so, larger) response. There are likely many folks that will not read through 3 pages of Spice Low Power messages that are very much in need of this part, and so would miss your post and question about level of interest.

Also, can you add some short comments about the needed skills and procedure to remove and replace the foil from the main board? Perhaps that is obvious to some people here, but certainly not for others. For example is it strictly a mechanical (of course delicate mechanical) removal and replacement, or is soldering required, etc.

I will also take 5 of these.

[Hans-Peter]

I'll take 3-5, depending on the price.

Hans-Peter

[PANAMATIK]

(11-21-2019 10:01 PM)Hans-Peter Wrote:  I'll take 3-5, depending on the price.

Hans-Peter

I will inform you about the price as soon as calculation is possible. I don't want to get profit.

Bernhard

[PANAMATIK]

(11-21-2019 03:53 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Create a new thread in the General Forum, repeating this new post about the Spice power connector board,....

A challenge to the forum. I have to ask Dave, if it is possible to move a thread partially to a new thread?

I created this new thread https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-14030.html

(11-21-2019 03:53 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Also, can you add some short comments about the needed skills and procedure to remove and replace the foil from the main board? ....

Yes, there will be a detailed description. The old adapter has to be unsoldered and the new adapter must be soldered to the 12 pads of the power supply, that's all, I think this should be easy.

Bernhard

[rprosperi]

(11-22-2019 12:32 AM)PANAMATIK Wrote:  I created this new thread https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-14030.html

[snip]

Yes, there will be a detailed description. The old adapter has to be unsoldered and the new adapter must be soldered to the 12 pads of the power supply, that's all, I think this should be easy.

Bernhard

Great, this should get more visibility.

While easy is of course relative, good to know it's a straightforward repair.

[PANAMATIK]

With the second SPICE LP prototype board I had, I converted my non working HP-32E into an HP-32E SLP successfully.



Now I made a redesign, because the outline of the boards had to be adjusted to fit better into the calculator chassis, and ordered the boards for the final version.

There are two different versions of the inner chassis. The first carrier has many gibs for each pin of the ICs , the other doesn't. If you insert the SLP you have to remove all these small plastic parts, which is easy to perform with a small diagonal pliers. I have already done it for the 40-pin IC as you can see.



The seconds version has already flat outlines, and this is what the SLP board is made for. I'm not sure if this is the first or the second version, perhaps HP tried to improve the contact problem with adding a better fixation, or with removing the parts for economical reasons.

Bernhard

[PANAMATIK]

After all my project "SPICE Low Power" was not successful.

Although I made two prototypes as described here and a working HP-34 LP for someone in this forum, and completed the software to 100-1% and the manual to 90%, it turned out to be too difficult to offer the circuit for DIY to anybody. Even opening the SPICE calculator case is known as rather difficult. And soldering the circuit inside and making all the necessary modifications is hard to describe. The problem of todays too large AA batteries, which could break the calculator case could not be solved. Also the batteries cannot be charged by the original charger with the new LP circuit.

I now have twenty fully working SPICE LP circuits lying around, but I'm not able to offer them.

But anyway, I'm happy having made this project (and being owner of a HP-32 SLP and a HP-34 SLP with HP-38 keyboard).

Bernhard

[Paul Dale]

This is unhappy news. I was looking forward to a more useful 34C


Pauli

[BobVA]

Thanks for trying! If anything needed your attention it was that poor little machine and its crazy construction.

[Moggul]

(05-24-2020 09:24 AM)PANAMATIK Wrote:  I now have twenty fully working SPICE LP circuits lying around, but I'm not able to offer them

Maybe you could offer a repair service where we could send you a faulty calculator and you would repair it using those circuits. I would be interested in one or two myself...

I am the happy owner of two Woodstocks repaired this way

[PANAMATIK]

(05-24-2020 03:06 PM)Moggul Wrote:  Maybe you could offer a repair service where we could send you a faulty calculator and you would repair it using those circuits. I would be interested in one or two myself...

I am the happy owner of two Woodstocks repaired this way

Thank you for this idea, which I had by myself already. I always wanted to avoid to become a repair service. It consumes my time because I would have a lot of work to do. But perhaps I will think about it. In corona times, there is nothing else to do than sitting at home and repair calculators, does it? :-)

Another problem is the DHL "crisis price increase" since april 1st 2020 for the US. Prices have incredibly exploded. Shipping to US is at least 53,- Euro from germany for the smallest possible package.

Bernhard

[badaze]

@PANAMATIK

Anyway you do a wonderful job. I would be the happiest man on earth if I had just 10% of your skills.

[PANAMATIK]

(05-29-2020 08:45 PM)badaze Wrote:  Anyway you do a wonderful job. I would be the happiest man on earth if I had just 10% of your skills.

So you are the happiest man on earth! My skills in cooking are only 10% of yours.

Bernhard

[PANAMATIK]

A minor but nice discovery!

I didn't know until today, that the "SPICE" calculator buttons had the same size and positions than the "Woodstock" buttons. When realizing that, I remembered, that I have HP-34E overlays for Woodstock calculators, which also could fit to the SPICE models.

The new "SPICE Low Power" circuit offers the possibility to convert any SPICE calculator into the Top model of the series, the HP-34C. The HP-38E SLP, which I mentioned previously as my SLP prototype, is not my favourite calculator, because it is a financial model, and my firmware extensions do not support its complicated internal program structure. Therefore I applied the HP-34E overlay today to my HP-38E SLP calculator and voila, there it is.

Converted HP-34C calculator

Also I installed for the first time an IR LED into the SPICE chassis. I used a LED socket, which looks very nice and there is no need for expoxy to fix it. I had to drill a 4,5mm hole and insert the socket together with the 3mm LED.

Infrared printing diode for HP-82240B printer

The "SPICE Low Power" circuit can convert your HP-31E/32E/33E/33C/37E/38E/38C into a IR printing HP-34E SLP with more than hundred programs and many preloaded programs of the applications handbooks. It is not even necessary to have a model with a PRGM/RUN slider, because you can switch between the two modes with keys.

Now some more good news:

I got a positive feedback from Hans-Peter this week, who successfully built an HP-34E SLP DoItYourself on a soldered board. The procedure is not too difficult and with some more description and fotos in the (not yet released) SLP manual I decided, that I will offer the SPICE LP DIY circuit to anybody soon, in contradiction to my previous posts. It would be a pity if this electronic could not repair many SPICE calculators. As Hans-Peter said to me: "I never thought, that my SPICE graveyard would be reactivated"

Bernhard

[BobVA]

Very, very good news!! Will this work with the "sandwich" models?
Bob

PS: I *knew* there was a reason my defunct 34C had been spared the trash can in my recent move :-)

[PANAMATIK]

(07-06-2020 09:18 PM)BobVA Wrote:  Very, very good news!! Will this work with the "sandwich" models?
Bob

PS: I *knew* there was a reason my defunct 34C had been spared the trash can in my recent move :-)

Yes, it will also work with the "sandwich" (solderless) models. Both models have their specific challenges. The "sandwich" board is very sensible for too much soldering and pads must be handled more carefully. The soldered version is more tolerant, but needs some patience to unsolder all components. The manual has two separate chapters to describe the installation for both.

Another reason for changing my mind about offering the DIY repair kit is that the problem with todays AA batteries could be solved either with flat top AA batteries with the original battery connector, or 4/5 AA size batteries with my new SPICE battery connector.

And I also found a procedure, and describe it in the manual, how the original charger can be used for charging the batteries inside the calculator, when the SPICE LP circuit is installed and the switching power supply board is removed.

Meanwhile there is experience from seven SPICE LP calculators made.

I still wondering if somebody has a clever solution for repairing a broken case or the common problem of replacing a missing mating thread of the SPICE housing.

Bernhard

[BobVA]

Fantastic! I'm very much looking forward to them being available.